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European Asylum System (CEAS). The advan-
tage establishing a commission of independent
experts accepted by both countries over human
rights standards is that they can meet regularly
and on their own initiative. Contrary to courts,
expert commissions are independent of claims
and individual cases and they can agree to carry
out further investigations. A systematic human
and refugee rights monitoring system can clarify
the responsibilities of third countries and the
EU. It avoids exposing intercepted people to
persecution or other risks, it guarantees access
to international protection at borders and it en-
sures disembarkation only at a place of safety. It
prevents collaborations with police and border
authorities that use violence against refugees
and migrants, avoids detention except as a last
resort, and eliminates “pushbacks”.
At the same time, is quite important to ex-
tend legal access routes, as developed to some
extent in the EU-Turkey deal and currently pro-
posed in a resettlement framework from the
European Commission (Collett
et al
., 2016;
EMN 2016; Grote,
et al
., 2016; Rummery,
2016). Proposals for refugee-oriented measures
such as humanitarian admission programmes,
visas on humanitarian grounds, and schemes
for temporary protection have been on the ta-
ble for years (FRA, 2015; UNHCR, 2016). These
could be bolstered by regular mobility measures
such as extended family reunification, mobility
for work and study, and medical evacuation
measures. However, they must be designed to
ensure people smugglers and traffickers cannot
exploit them, and they must offer guarantees
against exploitation in host countries. In the me-
dium and long term, creating legal access routes
does not just relate to the migration of refu-
gees, but also to legal and controlled paths for
labour migration at all levels of education, even
in the low-wage sector.
External border controls: European coast
and border protection and hotspots
The crisis in European refugee policy in 2015
and 2016 further shook confidence in the func-
tioning of the Dublin System, which had been
crumbling for some time. The significant influx
of migrants has been mainly a burden on coun-
tries with an external border (although not ex-
clusively, as the case of Germany shows). This
led to an overloading of the asylum system in
these places, and extensive human rights viola-
tions. This situation resulted in the construction
of new borders, the reintroduction of temporary
border controls at Schengen borders with a cor-
responding reform of the Schengen Borders
Code, and partial closure of the Balkan route.
Rules that had been jointly agreed were broken;
asylum seekers were turned away, “waved
through” or detained in violation of the non-re-
foulement rule; EU standards were not observed;
there was few consultation on decisions (Carrera
et al
., 2017); and there were also human rights
violations as a result of the enormous pressure
on countries with external borders.
There was quickly consensus among mem-
ber states that open internal borders should
only be restored when external borders had
been appropriately secured. However, this must
not be at the cost of human and refugee rights
requirements, and systematic sea rescue is re-
quired, with a consistent approach in order to
end the deaths in the Mediterranean (Goodwin-
Gill, 2016). Expansion of Frontex, the European
Agency for the Management of Operational
Cooperation at the External Borders, to create a
European Border and Coast Guard, aims at in-
creasing exchange of information, and also at
better coordinating the system of integrated
border management. In the hotspots in Greece
and Italy, this agency works with other agencies